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Wow, C is actually the one that had higher ratings. I guess this just goes to show you can't use BD/DVD sales as an indication for what is getting the most exposure, since those are made up almost completely of otaku.

I wonder if AnoHana really reached that level of popularity though. Going by the ratings it's hard to believe it is quite on the same level, especially since Nodame's manga sold 1 million+ copies per volume back when it was in print.

Oops. I went with the 3.2% number that was posted as the average back when the finale aired, and thought "oh, they both scored the same on that chart, it's gotta be 3.2%!" when there's a huge 3.4% as the title...

Thanks for an accurate translation, by the way. With my terrible reading skills, all I could do was repeat the lines Yaraon picked up and I guess they just mostly cared about the MadoMagi comparison, unsurprisingly.

(As someone pointed out on 2ch, the comparison seems quite irrevelant when you consider that MadoMagi also hit 3.2% on MBS one week... yeah, maybe MBS just is a bit more of a major channel in Kansai than TBS is in Kantou, but still.)

I updated the ratings for the week of July 4 - 10 yesterday - all the new shows. Natsume is slaying the late-night TV Tokyo slots, as expected.

On another note, yesterday's noitaminA achieved 2.1% ratings.
While this doesn't make for excellent numbers, it should be noted that Usagi Drop has (kind of surprisingly?) taken off in the DVD/Blu-ray pre-order rankings - its first BD volume is currently ranked #20 on Amazon in its general DVD/BD chart - behind Penguindrum (#1) and The IDOLM@STER (#10). My point being, noitaminA probably shouldn't be considered "bombing" this season either, since the producers are now looking at the sales as well, not only at the ratings anymore.

Note that I went with the top10 from Video Research, which explains why Sazae-san appears in the numbers AHT posted above me, and not in this post. Video Research has not included it because the ratings are only available for the block of three hours ranging from 18:00 to 20:54, which contains the Sazae-san episode but also other programs. Separate ratings are apparently not available.

If anyone is wondering about the cause of this, as well as why most of the big shows are missing: Fuji TV aired its annual FNS 27-Hour TV program.

So I'm wondering, considering you guys know these statistics pretty well, how many Japanese people do you think watch Anime regularly (IE are Otaku) on TV, how many regularly buy DVDs (considering that top DVD sales are ~50,000 sales per volume) and how many regularly download Anime.

Furthermore, you guys have any ideas what the English audience for Anime is?

I suppose the easiest way is to quantify top DVD sales, and also quantify top Fansub downloads. If we took a show that was the most widely popular and found how many downloads any individual episode got we might be able to figure that number out as well.

It may sound weird for me to be asking this, but I'd like to get a general overview of how big our Anime subculture is.

So I'm wondering, considering you guys know these statistics pretty well, how many Japanese people do you think watch Anime regularly (IE are Otaku) on TV

Ratings can give some insight into question, but their applicability is limited. First let's start with what a 1% rating means in Japan; that would work out to about 480,000 households. The data we get isn't national, though; it comes from larger markets like the Kantou region. Still let's assume for argument that a show that draws a one percent rating is watched in half-a-million homes.

However you're asking a different question, one that's measured by what marketers call "reach." That's the fraction of the audience that views at least one program of a given sort in a week or a month. We can't just add up the individual program ratings to get a reach figure, since many of the households being counted are likely to be watching multiple shows. Leaving out the Sazae-san's and concentrating on late-night shows, it's probably likely that the total audience for late-night anime is somewhere between five and fifteen percent of the total households, or some 2-8 million homes. The lower figure assumes a lot of overlap in viewing within the "otaku" audience; the higher figure would reflect a more diverse audience with many people watching only a couple of shows.

I've posted on ratings methodologies earlier in this thread. Here's a good starting point.

Ratings can give some insight into question, but their applicability is limited. First let's start with what a 1% rating means in Japan; that would work out to about 480,000 households. The data we get isn't national, though; it comes from larger markets like the Kantou region. Still let's assume for argument that a show that draws a one percent rating is watched in half-a-million homes.

However you're asking a different question, one that's measured by what marketers call "reach." That's the fraction of the audience that views at least one program of a given sort in a week or a month. We can't just add up the individual program ratings to get a reach figure, since many of the households being counted are likely to be watching multiple shows. Leaving out the Sazae-san's and concentrating on late-night shows, it's probably likely that the total audience for late-night anime is somewhere between five and fifteen percent of the total households, or some 2-8 million homes. The lower figure assumes a lot of overlap in viewing within the "otaku" audience; the higher figure would reflect a more diverse audience with many people watching only a couple of shows.

I've posted on ratings methodologies earlier in this thread. Here's a good starting point.

Interesting, so would I be correct in saying that that would imply that there are approximately 2-8 million Otaku who watch late night Anime regularly? That seems like an interesting figure considering that the best selling anime rarely climb above the 50,000/volume mark. If we assume, for simplicity, there are 5 million Otaku, who might all have watched this "very popular" show, something along the lines of Haruhi or Bakemonogatari, that means that only 1% of those who viewed actually bought. And when we consider that it actually costs them money to broadcast an anime, it makes for a pretty bad revenue model to solely depend on DVD sales, which may explain why so few original Anime get produced.

Does the above look correct to you?

This would also indicate to me that if the Anime producers pursued an online route with heavy advertising (for appropriate products...), they might do better financially rather then depend on paying cable companies for their distribution, which they usually lose money on. Considering the average Otaku is pretty tech savvy, I wonder why they don't do it already (barring inertia)....

And when we consider that it actually costs them money to broadcast an anime, it makes for a pretty bad revenue model to solely depend on DVD sales, which may explain why so few original Anime get produced.

But they don't rely solely on DVD/BD sales. There's usually a far amount of merchandise too, even for original series such as Ano Hana and TIGER & BUNNY.

__________________

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One thing that should be noted as far as anime DVDs and Blu-Rays are concerned, is that they're exorbitantly priced, and aimed at a core Collector's Market as such. It's not really aimed at your everyday anime fan, shall we say.

Because of how exorbitantly priced domestically-sold anime DVDs and Blu-Rays are (hence likely bringing with it a high per unit profit margin), anime studios only need to sell a few thousand of them to make back the cost of producing and airing the anime. This is tied into what is referred to as the Manabi Line.

So if an anime reaches 5,000 or more DVD/Blu-Ray sales, the studio(s) behind it are likely making a good or greater profit on the anime. A fair number of anime shows do in fact reach this figure.

Now, in reality, the system is much more complex than this, since most business ventures in Japan involve many different commercial interests coming together to fund and complete a particular project. This reflects the predominant Japanese value of managing financial risk by sharing it amongst many different people, so if a failure or disappointment occurs, the 'pain' is spread out a bit more, and hence less costly to any one investor alone. However, as a general rule of thumb, what I've wrote above tends to reflect what a truly profitable number of DVD/Blu-Ray sales is for an anime studio, at least from what I've come to understand through researching it a little bit myself, and discussing it with my fellow anime fans here on Anime Suki.

There are exceptions, of course. With shows like Pokemon, and the big shonen titles, TV ratings are arguably more important than DVD/Blu-Ray sales. But for late-night anime, the Manabi Line is probably a decent standard for determining if an anime is profitable or not.

A likely unanswerable question would be, "How many of them just record it off the TV instead?" VCRs aren't a new thing and digital recorders are more and more common now. And this is without the involvement of the Internet.

But they don't rely solely on DVD/BD sales. There's usually a far amount of merchandise too, even for original series such as Ano Hana and TIGER & BUNNY.

Well this was partially my point, few shows subsist on DVD sales alone. For a show to be succesful it has to, in some way, be "toyetic". So a show like Tatami Galaxy, while great, won't bring in cash as it can't (easily) translate into merchandise, and it doesn't appeal to the otaku who fork out for DVDs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

One thing that should be noted as far as anime DVDs and Blu-Rays are concerned, is that they're exorbitantly priced, and aimed at a core Collector's Market as such. It's not really aimed at your everyday anime fan, shall we say.

Because of how exorbitantly priced domestically-sold anime DVDs and Blu-Rays are (hence likely bringing with it a high per unit profit margin), anime studios only need to sell a few thousand of them to make back the cost of producing and airing the anime. This is tied into what is referred to as the Manabi Line.

So if an anime reaches 5,000 or more DVD/Blu-Ray sales, the studio(s) behind it are likely making a good or greater profit on the anime. A fair number of anime shows do in fact reach this figure.

By my math sales of of 5000, for 2 episodes, priced at $50, would bring in $250,000. Given an episode costs about $125,000-$300,000 to make, they'd probably be making a solid profit at 10,000 in sales. Of course some of that goes to middle men, but on the other hand, some disk prices are higher then $50, and contain less episodes! So actually it's a solid enough revenue model they have.

Quote:

Now, in reality, the system is much more complex than this, since most business ventures in Japan involve many different commercial interests coming together to fund and complete a particular project. This reflects the predominant Japanese value of managing financial risk by sharing it amongst many different people, so if a failure or disappointment occurs, the 'pain' is spread out a bit more, and hence less costly to any one investor alone. However, as a general rule of thumb, what I've wrote above tends to reflect what a truly profitable number of DVD/Blu-Ray sales is for an anime studio, at least from what I've come to understand through researching it a little bit myself, and discussing it with my fellow anime fans here on Anime Suki.

There are exceptions, of course. With shows like Pokemon, and the big shonen titles, TV ratings are arguably more important than DVD/Blu-Ray sales. But for late-night anime, the Manabi Line is probably a decent standard for determining if an anime is profitable or not.

There's also a whole class of shows adapted from manga, whereby the show is financed by the Manga publisher to serve as an "advertisement" for the manga. A lot of Anime drive a large increase in Manga sales, which also can lead to a company being less dependent on DVDs.

From how I see the numbers, the Anime studios have a neat operation going but it's only monetizing at most 1%-10% of their viewership. It would seem to me that even without foreign revenue they can earn enough off their core base. But if they found a means to get even a small amount of cash off those who don't buy masses of DVDs, they could be on to a winner, and branch out and do more risky projects.

Given this, I wonder why no one has managed to duplicate such a model outside Japan, and to other viewers. It's a pretty amazing thing to be able to make 8 hours of animation and be able to pay for it out of only 20,000 or so people actually paying for it. Compare that to a movie, where they need millions of ticket sales to fund 2 hours of footage, which is easier to make then Animation! (excluding blockbusters)

Well this was partially my point, few shows subsist on DVD sales alone. For a show to be succesful it has to, in some way, be "toyetic". So a show like Tatami Galaxy, while great, won't bring in cash as it can't (easily) translate into merchandise, and it doesn't appeal to the otaku who fork out for DVDs.

If you want a series that didn't bring in cash, Tatami Galaxy is a bad example. From the DVD/BD sales thread:

...not to mention that it was originally a novel => there may well have been a little spike in novel sales during/after the series aired. Generally speaking, I wouldn't look to the noitaminA timeslot for examples either, for various reasons...

__________________

You must free yourself from that illusion,
from the illusion that a story must have a beginning and an end.

"No, you are not entitled to your opinion... You are only entitled to what you can argue for.”
- Patrick Stokes

From how I see the numbers, the Anime studios have a neat operation going but it's only monetizing at most 1%-10% of their viewership. It would seem to me that even without foreign revenue they can earn enough off their core base. But if they found a means to get even a small amount of cash off those who don't buy masses of DVDs, they could be on to a winner, and branch out and do more risky projects.

That's the million dollar question, I think... last I heard broadcast revenues for the timeslots that don't rely on DVD sales have been dropping over the past few years, which makes it tough for studios that want to try and go that route.

IIRC a lot of the big selling late night shows like Bakemonogatari and K-On! typically average about 2%, so about 960,000 households by Seiji's numbers. So 5% buy rate for Bakemonogatari and about half that for K-On based on regular viewership. Whether that's accurate is another matter... I seem to remember that K-On! achieved about twice its normal rating when one channel did a four anime episode special block one week that aired it back to back with that week's Angel Beats.

That said... I'm not sure this kind of buy rate is actually unusually low for a TV series. For example, I get the impression that the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica's season by season DVD boxes typically sold around 250K in the US during their first few weeks on the market... with a viewership that reached 2.3 million in 2004. And that series has a hardcore geek following that would typically lead to high DVD sales, plus much better pricing than R2 anime.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Given this, I wonder why no one has managed to duplicate such a model outside Japan, and to other viewers. It's a pretty amazing thing to be able to make 8 hours of animation and be able to pay for it out of only 20,000 or so people actually paying for it. Compare that to a movie, where they need millions of ticket sales to fund 2 hours of footage, which is easier to make then Animation! (excluding blockbusters)

The entire mentality is difference... I'm pretty sure a lot of anime DVDs aren't driven so much by a need to own the show (they can just record the broadcast or rent), but because such expensive sets end up being an otaku status symbol. And I can't imagine western anime fans seeing such releases as status symbols rather than ripoffs.

(Note: western home video prices used to be similar to R2 anime DVD prices... that's why rentals were popular. I suspect that Japan is a rental heavy market, since it doesn't sound like non-anime DVD/Bluray sells that well there either, despite being somewhat more reasonable in price (albeit still quite a bit more than US prices).)

(Note 2: The closest thing we have in North America to typical R2 anime releases is probably some of those insane limited edition sets I occasionally read about while flipping through Sound and Vision magazines at my local library... ie. a $500 set of soundtrack CDs for Burton/Elfman movies that is housed in a box that contains a working zootrope, made in a 1000 unit run. But that's a product targeted to an established fanbase.)